Blog Tour Review, Unknown Vengeance

posted in: blog tour, Sherry | 0

Unknown Vengeance
Pat O’Brien

296 pages
Cayelle Publishing
published August 5, 2021

Amazon | Goodreads

About the book

A serial killer is terrorizing members of the medical community in Buffalo, NY. Veteran Detective, Rhody Richardson, is leading the investigation with his partner, Detective Wayne. Victims have been disfigured and tortured – faces sliced, numbers carved into their chests. The brilliant, but young, forensic intern, Connor Patrick, tries desperately to make sense of the numbers but cannot find a pattern.

The killer has promised ten victims, but Richardson, and psychiatric consultant Dr. Kaileen Taylor believes it will continue well past that number. At each of the gruesome crime scenes, the killer has left cryptic poems with different names. Richardson ventures down a dangerous path, deciphering what the killer is trying to tell them before they escape justice into the eternal void of the unknown.

My review

I read a lot of police procedurals and love to read about serial killers, but there is something about this book that stood out from the pack.   It is grittier than most.  I could easily see this as a movie.  You get a moment with the victim before they are killed.

It’s fast paced and once I started, I did not want to put it down.  I thought the cryptic clues were a clever touch.  And while there wasn’t a huge twist that so often accompanies crime/suspense/thrillers these days, I enjoyed the unraveling of the crime.

A great solid novel from a debut writer.  I’d definitely pick up the author’s next one.

Sherry

About the author

Pat O’Brien is a writer/editor for a federal agency. An avid storyteller, he will often regale his wife with elaborate made-up stories about some random person they see walking or sitting on a park bench. A lifetime crime-fiction fan, he is usually found reading, and rereading, novels from David Baldacci, John Grisham, James Patterson, Jeffery Deaver, Carter Wilson, or any other crime novelist he can get his hands on. He earned his degree in Communications, while taking many writing courses including creative writing, from Canisius College in Buffalo, NY. After college, he spent over a decade on the air in Buffalo radio and television. He never tires of speaking to, or about, his kids and stepchildren. Pat, his wife, Kerry, and their mighty 8-pound Yorkie-poo, Penske, make their home outside Buffalo, NY.

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